Once Apon a Midnight's Dream
by Katie Partisha
Summary: Rated T for some language and suggestive themes. Paleva Baren is a close friend of Garrus's and his sister, Solena. But Paleva holds a secret. She is severly in love with Garrus, and can't bring herself to tell him. Garrus/OC  Maybe  and MaleShep/Tali :


_Fixed some things here and there, hope it's better now. X3 I'm an artist, so the pictures and scenes show up easily to my mind, sometimes I forget that it doesn't come so easily to others. Many apologies. I'm no J.K. Rowling, however, but I still hope you like it all the same._

Three small adolescent turians sat at the dinner table, waiting for food. The two girls were fresh from playing dress-up and were wearing costumes. One, Solena, was wearing a princess looking attire, the other, Paleva, was wearing what looked like a well decorated general. Both had dirt all over them as if they had been playing outside. The male, Garrus, looked at both females with an odd expression, as if he were about to burst out laughing at any moment.

"Thank you for having me over, Mrs. Vakarian," Paleva said warmly to the adult female separating food into equal shares onto three plates. Mrs. Vakarian looked similar to the children, a exo-metallic-skeleton structure with scaly reptilian skin. Their faces almost looked like human like skulls, thus the racial nickname "BoneFace." Their skin color varied from the darkest of browns to near to light tan. Normally on their faces they had war paint on them, a symbol of whatever Clan they belonged to. The Vakarian's had blue paint markings that went along their cheek bones and onto their secondary jaws. Turians seem to be similar to humans, in their basic structure, as males tend to be muscular and females have larger hips. But the similarities end there.

Male turians, unlike the females, have a crest which begins at the top of the forehead plate, and over time continues growing. It is speculation by the author, but it may be that females find this crest attractive.

Female turians do not have breasts. They are not mammals and do not make milk, so therefore, no breasts. Male humans hardly ever find female turians attractive, which leads to "alienation" so to speak. Most females keep their helmets on their heads, so it's possible that one may have ran into them many a times without realizing it.

Other than the slight difference in physical appearance, females and males are both equally dominate, and both are equal in their warriorism. The author will note that "Warriorism" is not a real word, but the aurthor had a momentary brain fart as to what should replace this word before the author got disinterested in the story.

Going more in depth with a turian's inner and outer workings and appearances, turians use two sets of jaws to speak. Their primary jaw is similar in structure as a humans. Their secondary jaw they use to help speak it seems, as these are structured over their permanent holes on either side of their mouth. Turians do not have lips, so it would seem that it is plausible they are also used for expressions, as well as their slightly movable "eyebrow-like" plates above their eyes.

Turians, due to their Dextro-Amino Acid base, have blue colored blood, rather than our red blood. Also a note following dextro-amino acid based creatures; Like Quarians, Turians may have a severe allergic reaction which could lead to toxic shock, even death, to food that other species eat, like ourselves.

Their eyes are like any reptile. Small, with yellow to yellowish green eyes with slitted pupils. This may suggest that turian eye sight is slightly less than a human, but this speculation is also countered by the fact that Turians are militaristic, which involves eyes at their best. So maybe their eyes are really cat-like, which would mean that these eyes are FAR more better than we humans.

Which is slightly funny, on another author's note, as Garrus already looks like a kitty. X3

"No, dear. Thank you for coming," she responded, smiling kindly to the small girl. When his mother's back was turned, Garrus made a gagging gesture, which in turn earned a kick from Solena.

'You're such a bareface," Solena hissed, whispering so her mother wouldn't hear.

Garrus stuck out his tongue as far as he could. Paleva returned the gesture.

A mature male turian entered, his long crest curled inward at the end.

"Garrus," he said sharply, his pale yellow eyes trained straight on the younger in the middle of the obscene gesture.

"Y-yes father?" he asked, looking down as his expression turned pitiful at being caught.

"Come. We have things to discuss."

"It's almost dinner time," Mrs. Vakarian said exasperatedly, placing the three plates down.

Mr. Vakarian merely looked at his mate, rolled his eyes and beckoned the small male to come with him.

Paleva and Solena traded glances nervously as Garrus followed, unsure.

After inhaling their food both girls snuck to the room and eavesdropped on Garrus and his father's discussion.

"-and eventually, your crest will develop, and when that time comes, you must decide what you want to do."

"I want to be a specter, father," the young male's voice was in contrast to his father's deeper one.

"I doubt you know everything about specters," the turian snapped. "They are dogs of the council. If you like the Citadel so much, why not become a C-Sec officer?"

Mr. Vakarian left that next day for the Citadel. Several years later, once Garrus had matured a crest that spread past the back of his head he left to the Citadel to follow his dream. He had to take passage on a human vessel since his mom and his now grown sister didn't have enough to get on a real Turian cruise ship. The Captain was a tight wad, but Garrus was polite and delt with it. Solena was already convinced enough that he was running away from problems at home. His Mom is very sick with neurological disease similar to Alzheimer's Syndrome in humans, and the family could do little about it but wait. The cure was expensive, and still in its testing stages, which made it highly unpredictable.

Little did he know that Paleva snuck aboard the ship as well.

See, to Paleva, since her friends grew up, Garrus became more and more attractive. Sure, he had his girlfiends, much to her jealousy, but he never seemed to notice her at all. Her dark brown, almost black leathery skin and almost white plates made her different. Turian plates were made out of the same material as their claws, kind of like how human hair was made out of the same material as their thin, flat claws they called "Fingernails," so normally the plates were normally matching to their skin, but some gene mutation that caused her to have extremely different colored plates.

Solena of course noticed Paleva's crush on Garrus, but Paleva swore her best friend into secrecy.

Inside the cargo hold, Paleva was reading an email Solena had just recently sent.

"Dearest Friend Paleva,

"What do you think you're doing? Is it because of brother?... I swear, I will murder his hotheaded butt when I get the chance! I swear on it! The lengths you go to get him to notice you, Paleva… And you made me swear not to tell him. You are silly. Just tell him! Men are too wrapped around themselves to ever notice anyone else around him!

"Whichever you do, I'm here for you to talk to…

"Solena Vakarian"

Other than that, the turian played a game on her omni-tool the rest of the way to the citadel. Thanks to the Mass Effect relays, the trip to the Citadel took less than one earth rotation.

Unnoticed, she left the cargo hold and walked aboard the massive space station. Humans, turians, asari, salarian, hannar, drell, quarians, and krogan, everyone seemed to be here. The Citadel was beautiful. Paleva was so enthralled with the scene that she didn't notice Garrus walking towards her.

He grabbed her arm and gently but firmly dragged her away from the ship's hangar.

"You look silly, gapping around like a fish," he said, humorlessly. Paleva couldn't help but notice his lack of surprise at finding her here.

"How did you-"

"Keep quiet and act like you just met me-"

"Excuse me, Boneface!" sneered a human as he strode angrily towards them. Garrus cursed heavily in his native language before turning and facing the enraged human male. "You paid for only yourself, not the… Not this thing." He said "thing" with horrible emphasis while gesturing to Paleva. Maybe it was Paleva's imagination, but she swore she saw Garrus's hand twitch as if he was going to punch the human. If he did want to, it wasn't in his voice at all when he next spoke.

"Sorry, sir, she" Garrus put a corrective but polite emphasis on "she" "didn't tell me she was coming, but here, for the trouble." Garrus activated his omni-tool and gave the human extra credits. It must have been satisfactory, for he left.

After getting out of sight, Garrus steered Paleva to a nearby wall and pinned her arms against it.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he hissed in his native tongue.

"I-I-"

"My sister told me what you were doing."

"D-did she?" A flash of anger at Solena's betrayal showed on her face, but Garrus didn't notice. Or if he did, he didn't show it.

"Yes. Why did you follow?"

Her anger disappeared. Solena only told him where she was, apparently left out why. Of course, she was ever truthful, thanks to her mom's teachings, and she was already blurting it out before she caught herself.

"Because I love... er," she broke off, embarrassed. "I love the citadel," she swiftly amended.

Garrus eyed her carefully, looking for something. Then he backed off, seemingly satisfied.

"You want to work at C-Sec too?" he asked, switching back to standard.

"Yes," she responded, hoping hard that Garrus missed it.

"Alright, well I'm going there a little later. Let's go eat first."


End file.
